What do CSI teams and parents have in common? 

 

They're always trying to get to the bottom of the story.

 

As are journalists, congressional committees, historians and many more of us. The difficulty in writing history is that it's a bottomless pit, which is also what makes it interesting. 

 

On the surface, today's story about French archaeologist Jeanne Dieulafoy celebrates a courageous and adventuresome woman who refused to be governed by polite society, or even laws that didn't suit her.

 

With a little digging it becomes a tale of looted treasure and cultural appropriation by the shipload.

 

 

The daughter of a French bourgeoisie family, Jeanne Dieulafoy graduated left after twelve years at a convent school. She married shortly after, at age 19, in 1870, and within three months went with her husband to the frontlines of the Franco-Prussian War. Dressed in a military sniper's uniform, Jeanne fought by her husband's side.

 

It's little wonder, Jeanne had no qualms accompanying her husband to archeological digs in Persia, riding weeks at a time on camelback, enduring swarms of biting bugs and curling up on rock floors to sleep. It would only make sense for her to continue dressing as a man.

 

 

 

Jeanne and Marcel made many archeological excursions together, including travels to Egypt and Morocco, but their first trip to Persia in 1881 proved a turning point. 

After several expeditions deep into Persia, they undertook an ambitious dig at Susa, in present day Iran. One of the oldest cities in the world, Susa is the site of Darius the Great's enormous palace complex built in the fifth century B.C. 

It's also the most widely accepted location of the tomb of the biblical prophet Daniel, and the place in the Old Testament where Esther outwitted Haman to save her people.

Jeanne took an active role in recruiting hundreds of local laborers to excavate the site, supervising the workers, overseeing the trenches, and keeping track of every enameled brick uncovered. She worked as hard as any of the workmen.

In her book Ladies of the Field, Amanda Adams investigates the lives and work of seven pioneering women archeologists.

What drove them to travel to far-flung sites where the well water was filled with bugs, danger was daily, and the sun was so hot it could bake through leather boots? Each woman found archaeology to be an irresistible passion. And as they pursued their dreams, they helped to bury ideas about feminine nature as something intrinsically soft and submissive.

The women lived in canvas tents, endured heavy rainstorms, tight budgets and burning fevers. Jeanne Dieulafoy endured a continual head full of lice and once grew so weak from amoebic dysentery she had to go home to France until she recovered.

Still, she proved herself equal to men, including eight bandits who found her alone and tried to rob her. Armed with two revolvers, apparently seven-shooters, she held them off at gunpoint.

Famously, she told the bandits, "I have 14 balls at your disposal. Come back with six more friends." The stand-off was later portrayed in a lithograph.

UCLA Special Collections, from exhibition "Wilder Shores,"
exploring the lives of lady travelers throughout history.

 

Jane Dieulafoy kept daily notes in riveting detail as she and Marcel traveled and worked in Persia. She drew illustrations and took photographs. 

 

 

 

Jane turned her enthusiastic documentation into two volumes, which became popular in France.

 

The Dieulafoy's excavations in Susa yielded 400 crates of artifacts, which they shipped to France, enough treasures to fill two rooms in the Louvre. Today, the Persian artifacts are among the museum's most prized holdings. The most well-known may be the massive Lion Frieze from Darius the Great's palace.

 

 Below: One of the Louvre Museum lions from the famous glazed bricks friezes found in Darius the Great's palace in Susa and brought to Paris by Jeanne and Marcel Dieulafoy. 

This past November, France gave back some treasures plundered from Benin in the first large-scale restitution to Africa by a former European colonial power.

The 26 objects returned had seized from a royal palace in the West African country of Dahomey in 1892 when French forces invaded. French troops ransacked the palace of King Behanzin, ending his reign and beginning six decades of colonialization.

                              Royal statues of the Kingdom of Dahomey at the Musée du quai Branly                              before being returned to Benin, Jacques Chirac in Paris, France.  

The artifacts returned to Benin include the doors of King Behanzin's Palace of Abomey, royal thrones and warrior dance staffs. The restitution is but a fraction of the 5,000 works Benin is asking to be returned. About 90% of Africa's cultural heritage is now believed to be in Europe.

 

And so, we've reached the bottom of this story. Viewed through the lens of modern sensibility, in particular anti-colonialism hopefully not the end of the story of archeological treasure.

 

We need a both/and mindset to appreciate the spirit and courage of Jeanne Dieulafoy and move toward justice.

 

 

 

Thank you so much to everyone who entered my Goodreads Giveaway for a copy of Close-Up On War. I'll announce the winner is next week's newsletter.

 

 

Listen to my interview and check out more great interviews and stories on recent B&H podcasts at Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Android Podcasts, or wherever you listen.